


A Study in Wool

by ladymac111



Series: Miss Holmes [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Parentlock, Ravelry, Yarn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymac111/pseuds/ladymac111
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after moving into 221B Baker Street, Alexa provides the decisive lead in Sherlock's latest case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Wool

Alexa identified the sound of Sherlock pacing in the sitting room as soon as she came in the front door. “Must be a case,” she said to herself, climbing the seventeen steps and dropping her book bag in the hall.

“Hi.”

“Hm.” Sherlock barely acknowledged her.

“Welcome home,” John said, and he looked exhausted. They had both been out when she had left for school in the morning, and presumably had then been up all night working on the case. “Can I fix you a cup of tea?”

“Let me make it,” she said. “You stay sitting. Long night on the case with Dad?”

John nodded as she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. “Yeah. Really weird one, too, and apparently the work of a serial killer. Three victims now, garrotted with a narrow plastic cord, which they found on this latest scene. Too small to get any prints off it, unfortunately.”

Alexa pulled the tea bags out of the cupboard and dropped two into mugs. “D'you think Dad wants tea?”

John glanced at Sherlock, who hadn't paused in his pacing, and now was muttering under his breath. “No, he won't drink it.”

“Any idea what the cord is, where it came from?”

John shook his head. “No one has ever seen anything like it. It's clear and blue, with metal bits on the ends. Almost a meter long.”

Alexa almost dropped the mug she was holding and burst into the sitting room, grabbing a very startled Sherlock by the shoulder. “Dad! Do you have a picture of the murder weapon?”

He blinked a couple of times. “Yes, on the desk. Why?”

“I think I might know what it is.” She shuffled through the stack of photos.

“What, really?” John was up now, at her side.

She grabbed the photo and held it up triumphantly. “Yes! I know exactly what this is.”

“Well?” Sherlock prodded.

She grinned at him, eyes sparkling. “I'm surprised at you, Dad. You really don't recognize it? I have eight of these.”

“Alexa ...” John sighed.

“It's a cable from a set of interchangeable knitting needles,” she said. “Addi Clicks, specifically. I've got a set myself, Gran gave me them for my birthday.”

Sherlock took the picture from her. “It's a part of a knitting needle?”

“Yeah. I can show you how it works, if you want.”

“That's all right.” Sherlock got a faraway look in his eyes. “This changes things.”

“It's our first real lead,” John explained. “The other crime scenes were really clean, like the murderer straightened up after. There were signs of a struggle on the body, but not in the flat. All Sherlock could tell was that the murderer was shorter than the victim and probably female. No DNA on any of the victims, though. No skin or hair under fingernails or anything. But this one, the murderer left in a hurry. The place was a disaster.”

“It wasn't all because of the struggle,” Sherlock cut in. “Far too messy for that. This victim, she didn't exactly keep the place clean. You saw the kitchen. Lestrade's team totally missed the cord on the floor, there was so much clutter.”

“What sort of clutter?”

Sherlock was silent again, so John picked up. “All sorts of things. Books, newspapers, dishes, trash. Cat toys. And cat hair on everything, there were two tabbies.”

“Any yarn?”

John flipped through the pictures of the crime scene. “Yeah, see, here.”

Alexa peered at the photo. “That's quite a few projects. And that cushion there? I think that's handmade, probably. The victim was a knitter. I'm surprised she doesn't have any projects sitting out, though. On the coffee table or something.”

Sherlock stopped moving suddenly. “What?”

Alexa turned, surprised. “I said I think it's odd that she doesn't have any works in progress sitting out. Most knitters do, especially the messy ones.”

Sherlock snatched the photo from John, and his face broke into a big smile. “The coffee table, of course! There's a clear spot just here, like there was something sitting there. And that box of little rings spilled when it was moved.”

“A project, maybe? And the little rings are stitch markers. But why would someone take someone else's half-knitted project?”

“I have no idea,” Sherlock said. “But it must be important somehow.”

“I wonder what it was,” Alexa said, then had an idea. “Dad! I think we can find out what it was that was taken.”

“How?”

“Ravelry. You know, the pattern database I showed you when I was making your scarf? If the victim was a member she'll have her projects posted. Probably. So if we can find her we can see what's missing.”

“What do we need to find her?”

“Well, the easiest way would be to get her computer and see if she's logged in.”

“Won't work,” John said. “Her laptop was smashed.”

“We'll have to look at her projects, then,” Alexa said. “We can search by pattern and yarn. Shouldn't take too long.”

Sherlock was already on his phone. “Lestrade, we've identified the murder weapon. And we'll need the victim's knitting projects.” There was a pause. “Yes, her projects. And anything else knitted in the flat. Yarn too.” Another pause, and Sherlock put on his why-are-people-idiots face. “Expect so. Bring it all to Baker Street.”

 

XX

 

Darkness was falling over London, but Alexa was far too absorbed in her work to notice. The victim's finished projects filled two large boxes, the unfinished ones another, and about a third the yarn stash was overwhelming the couch as Sherlock and John combed through it for yarns from indie dyers – “It'll be easiest to identify her by yarns she has that aren't mass-produced.” She had given them a list of names to disregard, and they were sorting it to find the more unique yarns – of which this woman clearly had a lot.

The pattern search was proving more difficult. The woman had done a lot of lace shawls, but all the ones Alexa recognized had thousands of projects, and hundreds in the same colour family. She had thought the unfinished projects would be a better lead, but none of the yarns still had the labels, and only a few projects were far enough along that she could tell what they were. There had been no hard-copy patterns in the flat either.

She was still trying to find anything promising when Sherlock and John finished sorting and slumped against each other in the tiny space on the couch that wasn't covered with yarn. Sherlock looked dazed, and John was clearly fighting exhaustion. She put down her laptop in frustration and turned to them. “So?”

“Lots of small-name stuff,” John said. “A huge amount of … Wollmeise. And a similarly large amount of Madelinetosh.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “Why on earth would she have so much yarn?”

Alexa had to smile at that. “I don't expect you to understand knitters, Dad.”

“No, really, why?”

She sighed. “Admittedly, this is a _really_ large stash. But some people just can't help themselves. They love having the yarn almost as much as working with it. Maybe even more. And people do tend to go crazy over certain labels.” She walked over to the full bin of Wollmeise. “This yarn alone is probably worth over a thousand pounds, if you were to resell it.”

“That's ridiculous,” John said with a sigh. “I just hope it'll be useful.”

“It will be, Papa.” She surveyed the other small-name labels, and the pile next to Sherlock caught her eye. “That one, there, that's local. They're not well-known outside of London, and they don't ship outside the UK. I bet that will help; there won't be very many on Ravelry.”

Sherlock picked up a skein of mottled grey as Alexa went back to her laptop. “Thames Dyeworks,” he read.

She already had the database open. “What's the colourway on that one?”

“The what?”

“Oh, just give it here.”

Sherlock tossed it at her, and she located the correct colour online. “Only three stashes! Give me another.” A blue and white skein flew across the room, and a moment later: “Yes! I found her!”

Sherlock was behind her in an instant, watching the screen as he leaned on the back of the chair. “Who is she?”

“Jenny-cakes. Not much on her profile,” Alexa said, scrolling down. “Nothing the police don't already know, I'm sure. First name, two cats, favourite colour, favourite swear word.”

“Favourite _what_?” She could almost hear John's train of thought jumping off the tracks.

She smiled. “Nothing. Just a thing you can put on your profile. The important bit will be in her projects.”

She clicked, and the screen filled with photos. “Here.” She clicked on one, a lace shawl, nearly done, in deep red. “I don't recognize this; all the others are here. This must be the one that was taken.”

“The yarn is Thames Dyeworks MCN,” Sherlock said.

“And it says she has three skeins of this. Papa, go through that pile and see if you can find any that say 'Fleet Street'. It's dark red.”

John rummaged briefly. “No dark reds in here at all.”

“Hm.” Alexa pulled up a large picture of the project. “Hey, look at this. She was using Addi Clicks, you can see the cable. I bet that's the murder weapon! The killer didn't bring it along, they pulled it out of the project.”

“John, call Lestrade,” Sherlock said. “Ask if the other victims were knitters as well.” He reached around Alexa and took control of the computer, clicking back into the yarn database before opening another tab. Alexa restrained her urge to tell him off, and instead just leaned her head against his shoulder as he worked and enjoyed the rare closeness.

 

XX

 

Alexa woke with a start and a tiny thrill of panic before she realized where she was.

“Sorry,” John said as she pulled herself off him. “Getting stiff.”

She realized with more than a little guilt that she had been leaning on his bad shoulder. “What time is it?”

John stretched his arm and checked his watch. “Almost two.”

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and saw Sherlock folded into his chair on the other side of the room, completely absorbed in her laptop. “He's been working the whole time?”

“I think so. I dozed off for a while after he brought you over here.”

“I don't remember that.”

“You fell asleep on him, so he carried you over. You mumbled something about the yarn when he pushed it onto the floor to make space for us.”

Alexa stood up and stretched her stiff neck. “You think I should try to stay up, or go to bed?”

“You might as well get some sleep,” John said. “At your age, you need it, even though you don't have school tomorrow.”

“All right.” She headed for the stairs. “Leave me a note if you go anywhere, okay?”

“Of course.” John met her at the door and kissed her forehead. “Good night, sweetheart.”

She gave him a hug in return. “'Night, Papa.” She looked past him to Sherlock. “Good night, Dad.”

“'Night,” he muttered, not looking up.

John smiled at her. “Off to bed with you, now.”

 

XX

 

When Alexa woke up again, she was in her own bed, sunlight was coming around the edges of the shades, and she could hear the shower running downstairs. She glanced at the clock – half nine.

She pulled on a dressing gown over her pyjamas and padded down the stairs, and entered the kitchen just as Sherlock emerged from the bathroom, water dripping from his hair and a towel slung low around his hips. “Good morning,” he said, and favoured her with a smile.

She smiled back. “Morning. How's the case?”

“All but finished.” He pushed the wet hair off his forehead. “We're leaving for the Met in half an hour. Want to come along?”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

Sherlock's smile broadened and reached his eyes. “Couldn't have done it without you. Not half so quickly, at any rate.”

“What happened to 'no teen daughters at crime scenes'?”

“Statements in Lestrade's office is hardly a crime scene. And I'm sure you're interested to hear all about it.”

“Don't let him fool you,” John said, buttoning a cardigan as he came out of their bedroom. “He also wants to see the look on Anderson and Donovan's faces when he tells them a fifteen-year-old girl found the important evidence that all the professionals missed.”

Alexa very nearly bounced with delight. “I'll be ready to go in ten minutes!”

 

XX

 

It seemed like half the department was crammed into Greg's office to hear Sherlock's account of the case. John and Alexa squeezed themselves together in the corner next to the board where all the evidence photos had been posted, and watched with undisguised fondness as Sherlock threw himself into the story.

“It was Alexa who noticed the murder weapon was a knitting tool,” he said, and she blushed as all eyes in the room turned to her. “From there we determined the deceased was a knitter, and that one of her unfinished projects had been stolen, and the cable from the needle was the weapon – belonging to the victim, _not_ the murderer. The two similar victims over the past days were also strangled with their own knitting needles, and both also had projects stolen, all of these made out of the same yarn from a small dye studio in Greenwich West.”

“Wait a minute,” Lestrade cut in. “How could you possibly know that?”

Sherlock opened his mouth to talk, then gestured to Alexa with a sly smile. “There's this website, Ravelry, for knitters,” she said. “It's got a big database of patterns and yarns, and you can post your projects and keep track of them. We found her because she had a lot of yarn from this studio, Thames Dyeworks, which isn't very well-known. So then we compared the incomplete projects she had posted online to the ones that were found in her flat, and the yarn she had stashed to what was still there. The only thing missing was the project and yarn in this particular colourway from Thames Dyeworks.”

Sherlock flashed her a grin before he continued. “The name of the colour is 'Fleet Street', which was suggestive. The other two victims were easy to find online – both had the same colour of yarn listed in their stashes, and the evidence collected from their flats confirmed who they were, and that only the Fleet Street yarn was taken.

“The next step was to track down the killer. None of the victims had specific information about their locations on their online profiles, and had nothing else in common, so the killer had to be someone who knew both that they had the yarn, and where they lived. This could only be one of the owners of the dye studio, who filled the order and had shipping addresses of everyone who bought it. So far, so easy.”

Alexa didn't miss Lestrade rolling his eyes, and stifled a giggle.

“The question then becomes motive,” Sherlock continued. “Why would a dyer want to take back yarn they had sold? The forums on Ravelry led to the answer – there is one for this dye studio that serves as a fan club and a blog for the owners, a pair of sisters. A month ago that the older sister, Joanne, posted that the younger, Mindy, had lost her three-year-old son in a traffic accident, and that the shop wouldn't be updating for a while. But then, two weeks later, this Fleet Street yarn appeared for sale, and people snatched it up right away – it sold out in a matter of hours. There were some comments that it smelled odd when it arrived, which Joanne was unable to explain. She said that Mindy had dyed it on her own, and that they hadn't even seen each other since the accident.

“This focused the investigation on Mindy. A grieving mother, driven insane by the loss of her child. She was easy enough to track down – no criminal mastermind, this one, you lot could have done it without me. Her husband came along, though he didn't know anything about this, just that Mindy had been very depressed since their son died.

“The rest of this is already in the report, of course, but since so many of you came to hear me tell the story, I'll finish it for you. Mindy confessed right away. Following her son's death, she had gotten very depressed and cut herself – not enough to commit suicide, but enough that she bled fairly heavily. Her husband – the idiot – hadn't noticed the marks on her arms. She mixed the blood with red dyes from the shop and dyed a batch of yarn, which she named Fleet Street in homage to Sweeney Todd. You're all familiar with the story, I'm sure. She said she made labels for it even though she didn't intend to sell it, but when she came back to the workshop several days later, she found that Joanne had found it and it had all sold, at which point she panicked.”

Sherlock seemed to become uncomfortable, and looked to John, who picked up the story. “She'd made the yarn with her own blood as a sort of … penance, for her son's death. She didn't want anyone else to have it; it was her own … well, insane attempt to atone for what happened. So she had to get it back.”

“Easy enough to manage, since the shop kept records of everyone who bought it,” Sherlock continued, at ease again the concrete realm of things that didn't involve sentimentality. “She went after the three London buyers first, going out at night after her husband had drunk himself into a stupor. She wouldn't say why she killed them instead of just taking the yarn, but she confessed that she did. Insanity, probably. She had already bought train tickets to go get the other four, who live elsewhere in England, but she won't be making those trips now.”

“We've contacted the other buyers,” Lestrade added. “Told them what happened, and about the … blood yarn. There's no laws regarding this sort of thing, so they can do what they want with it.”

“All that's left is for you lot to come get all the evidence yarn out of our flat,” John deadpanned, and there were appreciative chuckles around the room as the crowd broke up, some congratulating Sherlock and Alexa on their way out.

When the room had cleared, Sherlock grabbed a pastry from the box on Lestrade's desk and flopped into a chair. “All right?”

“Yeah,” Greg said, taking one himself. “John? Alexa?”

They helped themselves, and sat down before Greg spoke again. “About the yarn, John … we've been in touch with the victim's next of kin. Apparently she didn't have a will – didn't think it was important, at her age.” He caught Alexa's quizzical look, and suddenly seemed uncomfortable. “I suppose you didn't see any pictures of her, did you? Good on your dads for that one. She was just twenty-two.”

Alexa sucked in a shocked breath, and John put an arm around her shoulders.

Greg continued. “So, since she didn't have a will, they said … they want you to keep her yarn and things. As a thank-you for solving the case.”

John's arm tightened around her as she began to tremble slightly. “What … all of it?”

“That's what they said.”

“They have no idea what it's worth, do they?” John said.

Greg seemed caught off-guard. “Is it worth a lot?”

“Several thousand pounds, apparently,” Sherlock said. “That was one of the first clues that the murderer was mentally unstable, and not just a burglary gone wrong. Nothing of value was taken from any of the victims, not even cash. Just the blood yarn.”

“You can have some time to think it over, if you need,” Greg offered.

Alexa shook her head. “No, it's not that. I mean, it was tragic and all, but I didn't know her or anything. It's just … that's an awful lot of _really nice_ yarn.”

Sherlock chuckled, and with a swift motion was out of his chair, and brushed her arm as he breezed by. “If that's all, Detective Inspector, I think we've seen enough of you for one weekend.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Greg waved them out the door.

As they made their way out into the crisp sunshine, Sherlock offered his arm to Alexa, and she took it with a giggle. “How did you like your first case?”

“It was kind of fun,” she said. “I can see why you love this so much. It's a rush.”

“You got the easy bit of it,” John said, taking her other arm. “The staying at home and sleeping at night bit. I'm exhausted.”

“You didn't sleep? He kept you awake, didn't he.”

“You know it's impossible for your father to be brilliant without an audience. Not long after you went to bed we were off with the police to arrest Mindy, and bring in the husband and Joanne for questioning. I left you a note but you were still sleeping when we got back so it didn't matter.”

A cab stopped, and they crowded in. Sherlock ordered their destination before settling back into the seat, his long arm reaching all the way around Alexa and resting on John's shoulder. She relaxed into his side, noting with more than a little pride that he was wearing the scarf she had knitted him for their first Christmas together – the weather was finally cool enough that he was wearing scarves daily again.

“I'm for a nap when we get home,” he announced. “John?”

“I'd like to see anyone try to get between me and my pillow.”

“Is this going to be a quiet nap, or a noisy nap?” Alexa asked after a brief silence.

“Quiet,” said John.

“Noisy,” said Sherlock, at the same moment. They shared a meaningful look that made Alexa feel a bit uncomfortable. Finally Sherlock sighed, and smiled a little. “Relatively quiet.”

"Good,” she said. “Because this _amateur_ consulting detective has an exam in calculus on Monday, and needs to be able to study without being embarrassed on behalf of the whole block.”

Sherlock's deep chuckle filled the cab, and he held her closer to his side. Alexa couldn't help but smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first case fic! Hope you enjoyed it. This was inspired by my tweasels in LSG, who got to wondering about how awesome it would be if a crime show involved characters trolling Ravelry to find a particular pattern and identify the victim or killer or something. So that led to this.
> 
> Some of the inspiration also came from the movie "The Red Violin".


End file.
